Past Events

Date: December 12, 2017

What does it mean to study the humanities and how do you go about conducting undergraduate research? Join the conversation with a roundtable of fellow undergraduate students, who will share about their own research projects and experiences. Plus, learn about summer research opportunities that can prepare you to apply for doctoral study in the humanities.

Date: December 5, 2017

A discussion of Leslie Peirce’s new book, Empress of the East, the life story of Roxelana (Hurrem in Turkish), beloved concubine of Suleyman the Magnificent and the only queen the Ottomans ever knew. Challenging the persistent view that Roxelana’s scheming undermined the empire, the book argues that the changes she and Suleyman wrought instead strengthened the dynastic regime. Roxelana’s most consequential accomplishment was the aggrandizement of the imperial harem’s political stature. The book hopes to move the history of sixteenth-century women rulers eastward, geographically beyond what the traditional narrative tells us about female power. The panel brings perspectives from outside the empire as well as from later Ottoman times.

Date: November 14, 2017

We invite you to take part in a conversation about the future of the humanities. Where should we be headed, how are we responding to the ‘crisis’ in the humanities, and what is the role and significance of the digital humanities within these new trajectories?

Starting with brief presentations from some of those leading new initiatives in the humanities, the event will be devoted primarily to discussion with the audience: come and be part of the conversation.

Date: November 7, 2017

A panel discussion of the men's engagement with women's rights from the early 20th century on, with New York Times columnist Gail Collins and biographers Christoph Irmscher and Brooke Kroeger. Panelists will also discuss Brooke Kroeger's new book The Suffragents: How Women Used Men to Get the Vote. Co-sponsored by the Arther L. Carter Journalism Institute, Yale University Press, and SUNY Press.

Gail CollinsNew York Times columnist
Author, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Story of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Author, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines

Christoph Irmscher
Author, Max Eastman: A Life
Provost Professor in English and George F. Getz Jr. Professor, Indiana University

Brooke Kroeger
Author, The Suffragents: How Women Used Men to Get the Vote
Professor, NYU Arther L. Carter Journalism Institute

Date: October 26, 2017

“This time I no longer have an idea of what I could do. After a philosophy of the absolute, nothing else comes other than the sinister. Hell, perhaps." — Alain Badiou, Closing Seminar, Théâtre de la Commune, Aubervilliers, Seine-Saint-Denis, January 2017

Alain Badiou, one of the foremost philosophers of our time, and author of the forthcoming The Immanence of Truths, (on the absolute), will discuss the situation of philosophy now. This book is the third in a trilogy that includes Being and Event (1988) (on the universal) and Logics of Worlds (2006) (on the particular). Alexander Galloway, NYU Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, will respond. He is currently at work on a book on the “Digital and the Analog,” in which Badiou’s notion of philosophy and mathematics is central.

Alain Badiou
French Philosopher
Former Chair of Philosophy, École normale supérieure (ENS)
Founder, Faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII